MP pays tribute to Bute for their welcome to Syrian families

Speaking during an emergency debate at Westminster yesterday (11th October) to discuss the ongoing Syrian crisis, local MP Brendan O’Hara took the opportunity to pay tribute to the people of Bute who, with the support of the Scottish Government, the Argyll Community Housing Association and Argyll and Bute Council, have welcomed 15 Syrian families to the island with more scheduled to arrive in the near future.

Mr O’Hara told the House

“I wanted it on the record of the House just how kind the people of Bute have been in warmly welcoming the Syrian families to this part of Scotland and have shown great humanity to innocent men, women and children in their hour of greatest need.

Mr O’Hara who visited one of the Syrian families just last month said,

“I am delighted to say that they are settling in well and are being supported by a thoughtful and generous local community. Just imagine how they must feel to leave their home and families behind not to mention the horrors that they have witnessed. We have a moral obligation to show humanity towards those in a desperate situation, and I call on the government do more than they are doing by taking more refugees into the UK. Let us look to Bute and other parts of Scotland to lead the way.

He went on to say

“There is an unimaginable humanitarian disaster happening right now across Syria and nowhere more than in the city of Aleppo. 400,000 people have been killed, 15,000 of those are children. One million people have been wounded since the war started in 2011 with 5 million people displaced, homeless or impoverished – if I can put it simply, that is the entire population of Scotland. The government must work to produce a coherent plan to immediately halt the air strike campaign in which the UK is involved to allow a political solution to be found to this problem”